I want to play some retro PC games, especially pre/non-Windows

>>3011036

I'm not sure I understand the question. What you're asking seems to involve a simple Google / Wikipedia search. Older computer platforms are extensively documented, and Wikipedia alone should be able to fill you in on hardware specs. Wikipedia has templates for listing consoles by generation, computers included. There are a few such templates at the bottom of the Amiga article, for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga You could also click on any of the category links at the bottom to see a listing of (non-Amiga) personal computer models.

If you're asking about how to set up emulation of classic computer games on modern computers, this is where Google comes in. I can't think of any central databases for this sort of info, but there are nonetheless tons of informative sites run by hobbyists.

All sources are filled with bogus. Just grab emulators and game sets and try stuff out.

>>3011060
That list at the bottom is part of what I was looking for. Now I just need to find out what good games there were for those other systems, find emulators, and so on. I should be able to do all that myself.

Thanks for the help, and sorry for wasting your time, /vr/.

Uh... this is unrelated to this thread other than being able wanting to play old PC games, but I'm new to this board and wanted to know.

Do you guys have like a link to a /vr/ recommended list of PC games on GOG worth getting? I just started buying stuff from there and didn't want to start a whole new thread for it.

Also, this is not retro, but is I get Beyond Good and Evil, should I find a console version or is the PC one fine?

>>3011036
speaking of playing retro pc games how would someone go about playing pc engine games?

>>3012046
PC Engine is about as much of a PC as a Famicom. The only reason why it has PC on its name was because NEC had the term trademarked in Japan (hence PC-88, PC-98, PC-FX, ect.).

>>3012056
ah, well the more you know i guess. i never knew about that shit so thanks.

>>3012083
I was actually confused af about that back inthe day and wondered if I could play PC-98 games on my Windows 98 PC.

>>3012086
There was a PC-98 compatible version of the Windows 95, but the PC-98 architecture itself is very different from PC/AT-compatibles, so it's not fully compatible.

File: WormInParadiseThe.gif (5KB, 256x192px) Image search: [Google]

5KB, 256x192px

>>3011036
Well the whole "best version" thing is pretty subjective. There are of course obvious cases where a game is so bad that it's not worth playing (Amiga port of Castlevania, for example) but otherwise you end up with some very subjective differences and it's not always clear which one you'll enjoy more.
One example that comes to mind is the Silicon Dreams trilogy by Level 9. The DOS version is quite ugly with the 4-color CGA palette, but even so it's playable and doesn't need a lot of setup in dosbox. The ZX Spectrum version has nicer colors, but the typing part is a big sluggish, or maybe it's just my emulator (FUSE) behaving weird. The Amiga version has more intricate & detailed graphics, but I don't like them as much as the other more abstract ones. So ultimately it came down to me using Gargoyle (a modern IF player) to run the ZX Spectrum data files. This is really great, it preserves the graphical features without the annoying keyboard issues, and on top of that the font type/size/colors can be configured, and it also gives you useful additional stuff like command history (so you don't have to retype stuff constantly).
But to figure all this out, I pretty much had to try different versions and see for myself. That's really the only way to be sure.
If you just want a starting point though, each platform has a "best games" list, so you should take note of them. For example:
http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/votes_list.php
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/bestgames.html

>>3011036
For 1982-1987 your best bet for finding good games would be on the C64. If you don't mind the ZX-Spectrum's wonky colors then you can have fun with some speccy games for sure. I know there were other options, but seriously the C64's game library is MASSIVE.

From 1987 onward it gets a bit hazy. In general I say if you want the best sound look for Amiga games. If you want the best rpgs go for DOS. There's also that one Atari computer, but I don't know much about it other than it having a midi input.

If you want to try out games the easiest way possible, but in a pretty garbage form the internet archive has tons of old PC games you can play in your browser:

https://archive.org/index.php